{"id":950,"date":"2020-01-12T01:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-cornell-law-review.pantheonsite.io\/?p=950"},"modified":"2025-03-10T16:47:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T16:47:22","slug":"queer-eyes-dont-sympathize-an-empirical-investigation-of-lgb-identity-and-judicial-decision-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/2020\/01\/12\/queer-eyes-dont-sympathize-an-empirical-investigation-of-lgb-identity-and-judicial-decision-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Queer Eyes Don\u2019t Sympathize: An Empirical Investigation of LGB Identity and Judicial Decision Making"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do lesbian, gay, and bisexual judicial decision makers differ from their heterosexual counterparts? Over the past decade much has been said about queer judges, with many suggesting that they cannot be impartial in cases involving LGBTQ+ parties or religious interests. To investigate these questions, this Note presents the findings of the first empirical analysis of the decision making of lesbian, gay, and bisexual judges in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examining employment-discrimination litigation, this Note finds no evidence that a judge\u2019s sexual orientation affects the outcome of the cases they decide on the merits. Specifically, looking to one year of data from federal district courts, this Note\u2019s results demonstrate that any divergence between the decisions of LGB judges and their heterosexual colleagues is not statistically significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stepping back from the question of whether LGB judges are different from heterosexual ones, the latter part of this Note considers whether they should be. Against the backdrop of the Trump Administration\u2019s appointment of explicitly anti-queer federal judges\u2014including some who vehemently oppose equality for sexual minorities\u2014this Note suggests that in the immediate future queer judges may play a central role in the continued fight for equal rights for LGBTQ+ Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read more, click here: Queer Eyes Don\u2019t Sympathize: An Empirical Investigation of LGB Identity and Judicial Decision Making<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Note\u2019s objectives are twofold. First, this Note presents the findings of the first ever empirical analysis of the voting patterns of LGB judges, as compared to heterosexual judges in the United States. Second, this Note considers what role a judge\u2019s LGB identity may play in his or her decision making. Using social science research curated in the context of race and gender, this Note summarizes previous debates concerning other minority statuses and introduces them to the environment of sexual orientation. Informed by prior scholarship on race and gender in judicial decision making, this Note extends the conclusions and principles to consider whether LGB identity should affect decision making and how it may do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,74,46,51],"tags":[155,279,350,411,413,436,437,439],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","category-issue-2-print-volume-105-archives","category-notes","category-print-volume-105-archives","tag-bisexual","tag-empirical-investigation","tag-gay","tag-judges","tag-judicial-decisions","tag-lesbian","tag-lgb-identity","tag-lgbtq"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4753,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/4753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/lawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}